I should have kept my heart out of it – or kept it under control – and as many of you have pointed out, I should have let Mr Ring speak,” Campbell said. “You’re right. I should have. He was our guest … I am sincerely sorry.

I’ve read Ken Ring’s book, ‘Predicting the Weather by the Moon‘ and found it very interesting, (free download from that link). Given that there is a full Moon on March Nineteenth which coincides with the closest Lunar perigee in 18 years (closest approach to Earth) to within the hour, and Jupiter is also at Perigee at the same time, I would not dismiss Ken’s warning out of hand. Especially as he was right about the recent quake, albeit within a widish timeframe.

Ken is aware that his predictions cause alarm, but says he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he said nothing and there was another quake. A tough position to be in.

Our best wishes to Ken and the people of Christchurch at this difficult time.

UPDATE 2 Breaking News: Huge Quake Hits Japan

A huge 8.9 quake off the coast of Japan (2.46pm local time) has caused huge waves to break into coastal areas and will produce Tsunamis across all of the pacific basin, including New Zealand. It has been confirmed as Japan’s biggest recorded quake. Tsunami warnings here:http://www.weather.gov/ptwc/

Volcanoes and earthquakes happen more frequently when the Sun has been inactive for a while. Contributor Gray Stevens has some stats on his website which say there is about twice as much earthquake energy released when the sun is less active than average.

Contributor Ulric Lyons points out volcanoes frequently occur when there have been sudden temperature uplifts coincident with sudden increases in solar wind speed.

Just such an increase took place today when the gust of high speed solar wind caused by the X class solar flare two days ago reached Earth. Contibutor Vukcevic has put together some excellent solar and geomagnetic information covering the present timeframe here http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/gms.htm

There is a lot to learn about the causes of the timing of earthquakes and volcano eruptions. In the meantime, our thoughts are with those affected by these events. Anyone who wants to use the donate button today will get the money sent to the appeals which will be sent out following this devastating event.

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Take a look a the Christchurch earthquake activity at http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz/
533 (and counting) earthquakes since 22nd February…
5,410 (and counting) earthquakes since 4th September last year…
That is what I call shock and awe!

Thanks for a good post Rog and to Malaga for the links – particularly the excellent animated map.

The Earth’s crust and mantle are always in constant motion, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that there are apparent links between the relative positions of sun, planets and moon.

Looking forward to seeing how Ken Ring’s latest prediction of another event pans out. It would certainly set off alarm bells for me if I lived NZ and I’d be running like the clappers to avoid any potential risk…🙂

At 7.45 pm on March 30, 1985 there was a magnitude 8.0 quake off the Central Chilean coast. I remember it well because I was living in Santiago at the time. However, I think this quake could have been predicted. First, a major quake had occurred every 80 or 90 years along that segment of the Nazca-South American plate since sixteen hundred and something, and the last biggie had been in 1903, 82 years earlier. Second, the quake was preceded by several weeks of very regular +/- 2 magnitude microseisms, a pretty good indication that something was happening. In fact, I think I remember predicting it.

Warwick Hughes has an interesting post on the Christchurch earthquakes here http://www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=850 The link to the animation takes a long time to load but is a great visual record of the Sept 4 aftershocks and the lead up minor shocks to the 22 Feb quake.
I feel that there is a need for information like this in all earthquake prone areas eg California

Thanks for the links. I’m not sure “a likely spot for a major subduction earthquake in the coming decades” qualifies as a prediction. You could say this about most of Chile. But the EM earthquake precursors certainlyinteresting.

I checked with my wife and she confirms that I did indeed predict the 1985 Chilean earthquake two weeks in advance. Maybe I have a marketable skill after all.

Rather nasty 8.9 quake 90mile off of north Honshu Island, Japan 3 to 4 meter tsunami hits near coast and is proceding down the coast. Tsunami warning for Hawaii 3:00 am local
and 10 more days to full moon and Jupiturs near pass. pg

Well tonight has well and truly disproved the man as we are supposedly in a ‘quiet’ period before his prediction of a big shake on the 20th. Well try telling that to the poor Japanese especially when their marvelous Urban Rescue Team is still here in Christchurch.

Hi Rob, and welcome.
Historically, more earthquakes and volcano eruptions have occurred when the Sun has been inactive for a while, and then suddenly gets active. This is what has happened over the last week or so. After four years of very low solar activity, we’ve suddenly had a couple of big flares and sunspots kicking out large amounts of electromagnetic activity into space, disrupting the flow of the solar wind with fast gusts of protons headed our way.

Ken Ring bases his predictions more on the angular relationships of the Moon and Earth. These tidal forces caused by the gravitational relationship between Earth and Moon are definitely involved with crustal deformation. I think the unpredictable electromagnetic aspect of solar activity is an extra factor which makes accurate prediction of earthquakes doubly difficult.

There have been epochs in Earth’s history when seismic activity has undoubtedly played a big role in changing the Earth’s climate over short timescales. And the after effects can continue for a long time. I would have thought that the short term effects would be due to the effects on atmospheric opacity and albedo changes. Maybe changes to the length of day would cause big upwellings of cold ocean bottom water as the oceans sloshed around due to the rotation rate changes and create longer term effects.

Malaga View says: March 11, 2011 at 12:03 pmIt looks like there a two major triggers for earthquakes:
1) The tidal influence of the moon as mentioned by Ken Ring
2) Geomagnetic storms as mentioned by vukcevic above..

Geomagnetic storm perspective:Another possible effect of the strong ‘ring’ currents induction under the Arctic ocean may manifest itself as an electro-magnetic brake on the magma vortex. As the angular momentum of the Earth’s rotation must be conserved ( http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MF.htm ), energy has to be released elsewhere.
Last night horizontal H geomagnetic field ( radial field is a vector sum of H an Z-vertical) excursion was about 700nT ( Tromso-Norway http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Japan.gif ) which is nearly 6.5% swing in period of about 2h30min. This indeed should show in the LOD and I would not be surprised if we get another permanent shift in the geomagnetic field intensity.

Preliminary results of studies conducted by the INGV (Melini-Piersanti) indicate that the earthquake in Japan this morning shifted the earth’s rotation axis is nearly 10 inches. The impact of this event on the axis of rotation, and ‘was much greater even than that of the great Sumatra earthquake of 2004 and probably second only to Chile earthquake of 1960.

Japan quake has been upgraded to M9.
It is important to remember that earthquake amplitude scale is in steps of order of magnitude, i.e. M9 is with 10 times of higher amplitude than an M8, but energy release is 31.7 times greater. M9 releases 1000x as much energy as M7!

Estimates of the death toll in Japan is starting to rise as better assessments show how badly some coastal areas have been affected. I’m sure all our best wishes are going to the survivors and our condolences to the bereaved.

Thinking about this event and the moon/Jupiter position, anybody know how the timing fits with the Parker spiral adjustment for EM propagation???

Dr Freund also has addressed temperature variations in an earthquake area, animal responses, radio noise, earthquake lights, water level fluctuations before and after earthquakes, and a host of effects which are observed.

@Zeke the Sneak says:
March 11, 2011 at 7:14 pm
That radiation, electrons or protons, as smash computer chips can also smash brain cells and other, that is why human life never lasts much more than one Gleissberg cycle. We can not withstand too many “showers” of this kind.

Every time a proton strikes a cellphone chip it stops functioning. Then you have to set it off and put it on again. I wrote this because it has been happening lately here.
You can see the electron shower on this are in the link given by Zeke:http://iono.jpl.nasa.gov//latest_rti_global.html
It has been usually happening from 12:00 to 1:00 pm.

Adolfo, that total electron content count for the ionosphere I beleive rotates with the dayside; it is much more dense now than previous views I have made this week.

I need the shots from 2011 March 10 on but cannot access them!

I can only say with certainty that what effects brain cell firing from outside the cranium are ultrasound waves, if used close to the scalp, (http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/devices/sound-waves-for-brain-waves) an oscillating em field, and of course direct electrical stimulation. I do not know anything about if cosmic rays or anything from space affect brain tissue because I have not studied it. Our bodies do have a natural Faraday cage surrounding them so we are protected from the most common external frequencies and fields, according to Johnjoe McFadden – I can quote exactly if needed. A few pieces to the grand puzzle. Good to see you!

“In March last year a preliminary study was published from the Space and Science research centre in Florida.

A review of historical records was performed for 350 years of global volcanic activity (1650-2009) and seismic (earthquake) activity for the past 300 years (1700 to 2009) within the continental United States and then compared to the Sun’s record of sunspots as a measure of solar activity.

According to this study, there exists a strong correlation between solar activity and the Earth’s largest seismic and volcanic events.

They found an impressive degree of correlation for global volcanic activity (>80.6%) and for the largest USA earthquakes (100% of the top 7 most powerful) versus solar activity lows.

According to another study, published in Earth and Planetary Science letters, solar activity, as indicated by sunspots, radio noise and geomagnetic indices, plays a significant but by no means exclusive role in the triggering of earthquakes, with maximum quake frequency occurring at times of moderately high and fluctuating solar activity – which is what we have seen in the last few weeks.

Piers Corbyn, at Weather action, added last month following the New Zealand earthquake that within such long quieter solar periods like we have been through, the biggest earthquake & volcano events are triggered by extra solar activity, particularly during the the rising phase of even solar cycles.

This is precisely where we are now as Solar cycle 24 gains in strength. He also claims that solar activity strongly influences climate patterns too.

According to Mr Corbyn, ‘The (New Zealand) event follows the world wide increase in volcanism and earthquakes in the last year or two and confirms the general statistical fact that more – and more serious – earthquakes, and volcanic activity, tend to occur around solar cycle minima’.

He reckons there will be more strong earthquakes like the ones we have recently witnessed in the next 2 years.

This is another one of those frustrating areas of science. There does seem to be empirical evidence to show a link between periods of low solar activity, and increased occurrences of earthquakes, but quite why this is so is not fully understood.”

tallbloke says:
March 11, 2011 at 10:04 pm“2149 GMT: The Kyodo news agency is now citing a safety panel as saying that the radiation level inside one of the reactors at the Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear plant is 1,000 times higher than normal.

This is starting to look very serious indeed. Fingers crossed they get the situation under control quickly.

Thank for the planetary orbits chart Rog, it is just what I need, but a first sight not giving the picture I’m looking for. Will do more investigation tomorrow.

CAN ANYONE PLEASSSSSSEEE TELL ME WHEN AND HOW BIG THE NEXT EARTHQUAKE IS LIKLEY TO BE IN CHRISTCHURCH NEW ZEALAND. i HAVING VARIYING DATES AND MAGNITUDES AND AM REALLY SCARED, I WANT TO LEAVE WITH MY FAMILY OF SIX BUT DONT KNOW WHEN AND FOR HOW LONG? PLEASE HELP MANY THANKS

tallbloke says:
March 11, 2011 at 11:47 am“…Maybe changes to the length of day would cause big upwellings of cold ocean bottom water as the oceans sloshed around due to the rotation rate changes and create longer term effects.”

Claudia, just woke up here in the UK and approved your comment, sorry for the wait.

Scientists and independent researchers have been trying to fathom the mysteries of earthquake prediction for many years. No-one has the answer, but there are tantalising clues to the forces involved, so we try to advance the knowledge little by little.

None of that is any use to you at the moment. What you need is solid practical advice on which to base important decisions for you and your family right now.

Christchurch is built on an old dried up riverbed of stones and sand, this substrate liquifies during a quake. Man made structures are the biggest risk in an earthquake, especially old buildings. Domestic dwellings built to newer standards are much safer.

Speak with friends locally, maybe a group of you might decide to take Ken Ring’s advice and go camping, or visit friends for a week to give the kids a fun holiday, and ease the stress while you work out your thinking.

More bad news… Looks like a big explosion at the nuclear plant has stripped the outer cladding from one of the buildings. Many people are trying to flee the area and the authorities have set up a 40 mile exclusion zone to prevent anyone going in.

Here’s hoping that they can prevent a breech of the containment vessel. The Japanese have suffered more than enough from the quake and tsunami.

Could there be a possible short or medium term climatic effects from the Japan’s earthquake?
Relationship between Kuroshio current and Kuroshio countercurrent flowing along the Japanese islands is important factor in the pacific climatic picture.
There is possibility that this relationship may be affected in some way.

In the 1990’s I was looking at quake locations and intensities related to heliocentric conjunctions of the outer planets, plotted a lot of things on an old Mac computer. One of the most noticeable things i remember finding was the surge in increased intensity of quakes occurring mostly on the western edge of the ring of fire (ROF) up to 30 days before outer planet synod conjunctions, then a shift to the eastern edge just as the point of closest alignment passed and then the bulk of the activity was shifted to the Eastern side of the ROF .

Spent some time looking at the LOD changes, and it appeared to me that the pacific plate is loose, and when the LOD shortens as the Earth inductively speeds up the Pacific plate slips west and triggers compressive/subduction quakes on the Japanese side and separation fault style quakes on the East edge, with the converse on the post conjunction side of the timing.

Compressive quakes on the East side of the ROF, and strike/ slip faults occurring on the West edge of the ROF. Most of the activity on East/West aligned faults seemed to occur when the moon was most over head by declination, specifically Greece and Turkey Mediterranean areas, and parts of the middle East to China areas. Whereas the LOD? synod conjunction triggers did not seem to play much of a part except on the North/South aligned faults.

All of my time spent on quake analysis came to a screeching halt when I lost the drive in the Mac and switched to more focus on weather data when I bought the COOP TD3200 weather data set, and a new PC then was occupied full time with that new toy. (when not working 60+ hours a week nights)

What I took away from the boxing day quake that also was touted as shifting the LOD at the same time was which was the leading factor, and which was the effect? As that was a non-compressive ripping open of the India plate scar/plate boundary as the Australian plate moved away, on its long term sojourn to visit Japan and Kamchatka, in another 50 to 100 million years or so.

I could not find data with fine enough temporal resolution to see which was first, maybe things are better now and someone will be able to figure out how much is the Tsunami wave inertia and how much is the electromagnetic drive effects, compared to the diving of the subducted plate into the mantle effects.

The Main stream tectonics peeps were all about “how the quake did it” and were not interested in delving deeper into the fine details of the correlations.

Thanks Gray. Looks like an interesting alignment coming up with Mercury, Venus and Earth at 90 degrees to that opposition around the time of Jupiter perihelion and Lunar perigee/full moon on the 19th March.

A couple of days ago, because of this Christchurch posting, after examining the Christchurch area sceismic maps I checked out that Honshu area. Last night I surfed the entire Ring of Fire and found 2 other spots with the same signature. 1 off Kamchitka, very deep, and 1 off Oregon about the same depth as the Honshu spot. There is also 2 small spots on the New Madrid fault that bare watching, the one in Arkansas is most unusual.
At Christchurch we also may be looking at a volcano reawakening. New hot springs and sulfur gassing. I think I would move from the area. pg

@Vuk: There number of aftershocks it is so great and so different as compared, for example, with the Chilean quake, that your “electromagnetic” brake, happening just there, when, as you have shown us, the north magnetic field is going to Russia, seems every time more plausible.Geomagnetic storm perspective:
Another possible effect of the strong ‘ring’ currents induction under the Arctic ocean may manifest itself as an electro-magnetic brake on the magma vortex. As the angular momentum of the Earth’s rotation must be conserved ( http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MF.htm ), energy has to be released elsewhere.

Hi Adolfo
We have to see (during next 2-3 years) if there is a major magnetic shift in the N. hemisphere . Most people forget that Kamchatka, (further north-east from Japan) has an ongoing volcanic activity for some time now.

Watch this swarm in front of the Oregon coast….(it happened something of the like, the day before the japanese big earthquake):
M 5.0, off the coast of Oregon
Date: Tuesday, March 8, 2011 01:26:59 UTC
Monday, March 7, 2011 04:26:59 PM at epicenter
Depth: 17.80 km (11.06 mi)

Yes, there were 38, 4 to 5, quakes in same area the 7 days before the 8.9 big one. All around 10 miles deep. The spot off Oregon is simular but much less. 3 to 5 quakes a week, 3 to 5s, at about 10 miles deep. the spot off of Kamchitka is running around 20 per week at 4 to 5 and is very deep, 25 to 45 miles. These are interesting times we live in. pg

“Several studies have suggested that tidal-triggering is more likely
to be caused by a combination of solid and ocean tides rather than
solid earth tides only (Tsuruoka et al., 1995; Wilcock, 2001; Cochran
et al., 2004)”

“In the present work, we detected a correlation between earthquake
occurrence and Earth’s solid tides. However, because the ocean
and earth tides are also correlated, we cannot eliminate the possibility
that the oceanic tide is indirectly the main cause of the observed
correlation.”

The spot off of Los Muchis, Mexico, is up to 10- 4 to 5 quakes at about 10 miles depth in the last 3 days. The Oregon spot has gone quiet. The sea of Cortez, Los Muchis spot looks like a likely place for Richard Hollis es rock back. It has the same signature as the Honshu spot had. pg

It is easy to be wise after the event, all of us occasionally make a remark, which in the afterthought may be interpreted as a prediction. About 10 hours before the Japan’s earthquake, I put this short post on WUWT
vukcevic says:March 10, 2011 at 12:02 pm
Currently geomagnetic field is getting seriously shaken:http://flux.phys.uit.no/cgi-bin/plotgeodata.cgi?Last24&site=tro2a&amp;
(link: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/10/sol-is-finally-waking-up/#comment-617659 )
Considering that about a week earlier I’ve started ‘EARTHQUAKES AND GEOMAGNETIC STORMS’ survey webpage http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/gms.htm
I may have tempted to add something about a possible earthquake, but since previous day Japan had half a dozen M6+ quakes, I would think at the time, if it did happen, it is more likely to be somewhere in Indonesia or possibly Fiji to N. Zeeland.
But in no way that would be based on any extra knowledge, just pure guess, that would not have any future value.

Ulric Lyons says:
March 15, 2011 at 12:51 am…”Theodore White made a good prediction…”

Good find Ulric and someone confident enough to put his reputation on the line. Here’s his forecast for Mar/Apr…

“During the entire month of March 2011 we can expect to hear of powerful earthquakes along the ‘Ring of Fire.’

In March, look first to Asia for seismic action in the northern hemisphere – China and Japan, then to the Philippines, along to the Aleutian Islands, Alaska, to British Columbia, Canada, then to California in the United States, stretching down to Mexico and into South America.

With the global transits at hand, there are sure to be powerful, large magnitude earthquakes in the months of March and April.

My astrological calculations show a 88.9% rating for significant seismic activity between 6.6 to 7.9+ in magnitude.

There are additional planetary configuration signals I’ve interpreted that show even stronger quakes by scale – 8.9 to 9.2 in magnitude. Some people will not believe me, but transits are well within astrological red-zone warning range.

March 16, 2011 at 2:08 pm
Leif Svalgaard says:
March 16, 2011 at 12:16 pm
Yours is just the usual armchair alarmism.

No it is not, I have initiated an innovative and new research, not done before.
Sometimes you write load of nonsense. It would be useful if you red what you are commenting on.
Quote: It is not claimed that geomagnetic storm is a primary cause of any earthquake. However if conditions for an earthquake are ‘ripe’, then solar storm could be a trigger (not the cause) for it, and bring it forward for few hours or days.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/gms.htm
Let me explain in simple terms what that means:
If Japanese earthquake was ‘ripe’ for occurring, i.e. geological fault has gone critical, it may have occurred instead of the last Friday on Sunday or yesterday. There was a large solar flare in mid week, geomagnetic disturbance occurred some hours later, late Thursday evening-Friday morning ( I recorded it here http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Japan.gif ). A small trigger was enough to bring whole thing down just few hours or days earlier then it would happen otherwise. So if during one solar cycle there is x of eqs, this is not going to make any noticeable difference to total number or strength.
So of what use is this?
Well, there were few pre-shocks, we were not to know that a major quake will follow, but there was a possibility. Since we knew that there was a strong geomagnetic storm going on ( I actually posted this on WUWT some 8 hours prior to the quake:
vukcevic says:
March 10, 2011 at 12:02 pm
Currently geomagnetic field is getting seriously shaken:
(WUWT link: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/10/sol-is-finally-waking-up/#comment-617659 )
then all areas with tremors during the previous 12-24 hours could get an alert.
Not an ‘armchair alarmism’ but a possibly useful additional information.
So your obfuscation and continuous negative attitude to any progress, is to put it mildly damaging and even deplorable.

Thanks Vuk for a good comment, despite the attempt at a put-down by LS.

There could be other triggers which can cause a large seismic event in an area of the crust which has built up lots of energy, apart from solar effect. Lunar and planetary tides may provide the last straw which breaks the camels back, and even the disturbance caused by the close approach of a comet could provide the trigger…

Comet Elenin (C/2010 X1) is due to pass within ~0.23AU of Earth 16 Oct 2010, and I will be watching to see what this harbinger may bring. Link to JPL animated current best guess available here…

Recently viewed an animation of a GPS marker in Japan that was observed to be dragged sideways 8 feet over a time of weeks and then pop back to original position immediately after Honsu quake. My comment may as much in hindsight as experts but surely after 2 0r 3 feet it should have raised some curiosity if not alarm in the observers??? Further….does anyone know if radon emissions in prequake area were observed to rise substantially ? It was one marker tht was observed in the big LA quake years back….ironically perhaps by a New Zealander.

This thread continues to receive a lot of traffic from around the world, particularly from the NZ timezone. Please don’t be afraid to add your thoughts and experiences to this page, you are welcome.

Geologists have long puzzled over anecdotal reports of strange atmospheric phenomena in the days before big earthquakes. But good data to back up these stories has been hard to come by.

In recent years, however, various teams have set up atmospheric monitoring stations in earthquake zones and a number of satellites are capable of sending back data about the state of the upper atmosphere and the ionosphere during an earthquake.

Last year, we looked at some fascinating data from the DEMETER spacecraft showing a significant increase in ultra-low frequency radio signals before the magnitude 7 Haiti earthquake in January 2010

Today, Dimitar Ouzounov at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland and a few buddies present the data from the Great Tohoku earthquake which devastated Japan on 11 March. Their results, although preliminary, are eye-opening.

They say that before the M9 earthquake, the total electron content of the ionosphere increased dramatically over the epicentre, reaching a maximum three days before the quake struck.

At the same time, satellite observations showed a big increase in infrared emissions from above the epicentre, which peaked in the hours before the quake. In other words, the atmosphere was heating up.

These kinds of observations are consistent with an idea called the Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling mechanism. The thinking is that in the days before an earthquake, the great stresses in a fault as it is about to give cause the releases large amounts of radon.

The radioactivity from this gas ionises the air on a large scale and this has a number of knock on effects. Since water molecules are attracted to ions in the air, ionisation triggers the large scale condensation of water.

But the process of condensation also releases heat and it is this that causes infrared emissions. “Our first results show that on March 8th a rapid increase of emitted infrared radiation was observed from the satellite data,” say Ouzounov and co.

These emissions go on to effect the ionosphere and its total electron content.

It certainly makes sense that the lithosphere, atmosphere and ionosphere are coupled in a way that can be measured when one of them is perturbed. The question is to what extent the new evidence backs up this idea.

The Japan earthquake is the largest to have struck the island in modern times and will certainly turn out to be among the best studied. If good evidence of this relationship doesn’t emerge from this data, other opportunities will be few and far between.

I wonder what all of you will say when, every valley will be laid low and every mountain cast down,
Also when the mount of olives splits from east to west.
OOPS,, didnt see that one coming.
Glyn.. from Christchurch nz

Just before the 2010 Sept 4th Darfield quake it was quieter than quiet and warm (didn’t notice condensation), then in quick succession – there was a strange flash of bluish light across the sky, then the noise similar to a train derailing outside your backyard and then the waves of movement started whilst still the roaring noise – it was impossible to maintain balance or negotiate down the hall without bouncing off walls.
I still work 13 flights up in Christchurch….you need to hang on when there’s a mag5.5+.
We are getting quite good at calling the magnitudes these days prior to the posting on quake websites.
I appreciate reading this column. Keep talking and gathering the data guys. No need to ack.
Lou
Canterbury

Hello world. Yes, crazy living here in chch still. I hope all is well out there. Stay safe world. I am waiting to see some warnings publicly now that fletchers earthquake recovery team have been warned by civil defence of increased threat of seismic activity at this time. thank you mr Ring for all you have done to help prepare people. I am awaiting the date 17 october 2012 as my calculations show there is an increased chance of activity at this time. As Mr Ring said… If you worked out there was a threat and said nothing…. How could you live with yourself? States in america are having a ” stop, cover and hold” day on october 18th…. Perhaps 16th would be more appropriate?? Keep safe. I’m not trying to scare anybody… I am a young father who has kids previously significantly affected by shakes of 2010 and onwards. To all in the emergency services, Kia Kaha…. Stay Strong.

Arrgggkjkkhklmyl Friggin Ken Ring. Oh my gosh. Is he not flippin dead??? Seroiously I thought he’d at least be in hiding or joined Harold Camping in dissapearing, but noooooo here he is still talking loads of sh** Please can you go away Ken Ring. Your predictions arent accurate, you know nothing about earthquakes. Scientists know heaps more than you. ESPECIALLY GEOLIGISTS. Thats what they study. I know a geologist whos predictions are very accurate, alot more accurate than yours. Mr Ken Ring knows nothing yu silly people stop listening too him. You are driving yourseves mad and everyone around you. I too live in Christchurch and I do appreciate updates about seismic activity but not from Ken Ring cause hes just a liar. And dont say flippin Kia kaha its got a nice meaning and all but You don’t need to keep on saying it.

[Reply] Hi Bob, please could you back up your assertions about the accuracy of your geologist friend’s predictions by linking to something we can actually see. Thanks. TB

He doesnt have a website because hes too busy being a geoligist. But he has told me that a 5.2 is going to hit on 1st december 2012, How does he know this? Judging by the seismic activity there is alot of tension building up. By the way this is a lie. Noone can fully predict the exact date and time an earthquake will hit. Yes they could be slightly accurate, but thats only if they know what they are doing and not watching the bloomin moon all the time. I apoligise if i have scared anyone, I was just being Ken Ring for a minute.
Thankyou
Bob

Thanks Bob. Geological conditions which are at a critical boundary can be ‘tipped’ by comparatively small forces. This is why quakes and volcanic eruptions frequently occur at the turning point of lunar alignments.

The Sun and Moon don’t only raise the tides we see in the ocean, but also the atmosphere, and the subsurface mantle.

The Moon reaches one of its most distant apogees of the year on November 29, four hours after the occurrence of Full moon (direct alignment with Earth and Sun).

Perhaps if a quake does occur between the date your geologist friend predicts and the time of lunar apogee, you might give some thought to the matter.

There is an opposite effect that Earth has on the Moon too:

Moon has moonquakes. Seismometers left on Moon by the Apollo astronauts detected some 50 moonquakes in the 5 years that they were active. There were four different types:
1) Deep but weak ones centered half or more of the distance to its center. Many of these are believed to be caused by gravitational (tidal) effects from Earth as they were concentrated at periods when Moon was at its apogee and perigee from Earth*
2) Weak surface moonquakes were thought to be caused by localized thermal expansion when the Sun warmed the crust after a two week long frigid night.
3) At least one was thought to originate from a meteor impact.
4) Some moonquakes originated from up to 30 km deep did not have a known cause. These moonquakes ranged up to 5.5 on the Richter scale and lasted up to 20 minutes. They lasted much longer than similar Earthquakes because Moon’s crust is relatively rigid, without oceans, and Moon doesn’t have a liquid core. So there isn’t the dampening that occurs on Earth